


A Game For Six Players

by KillClaudio



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (but lots of it), Crack Taken Seriously, Melinda May Is a Troll, Mid-Season One, Multi, Non-Explicit Sex, One of the Author's Favorites, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:00:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23477359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillClaudio/pseuds/KillClaudio
Summary: The team that plays together, stays together. Melinda has decided on her play. Now she just has to get the rest of the team on board.
Relationships: Everyone/Everyone
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	A Game For Six Players

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the first season of Agents of SHIELD last month, only *checks notes* seven years late, and this popped into my head.

Ward is the easiest, so Melinda starts with Ward. Seducing him is a matter of doing her job competently, being badass and looking hot, and Melinda does those things anyway without even trying. It only takes a few weeks to get him into bed, so little challenge involved that she's actually disappointed, but he makes up for it by being good with his tongue and having a stamina rare in a man his age. Stage one complete.

Fitz might be the obvious next target, but Fitz is a problem. For one thing he's quietly terrified of Melinda, which Melinda accepts as the respect she's due and also a good sign of Fitz's self-preservation instincts. For another, Fitz is desperately in love with Simmons. Melinda remembers how this works, how the intersecting bonds of friendship and trust and sex can hold a team together. She also remembers how hurt feelings and petty jealousies can bring everything crashing down. Not Fitz. Not yet.

So Skye is her next choice. Where Skye is all feelings, Melinda is all control, and that makes her a puzzle that Skye longs to solve. Melinda offers up tiny pieces of herself like morsels of food to a wild animal; pranks from her days at the Academy; the mission with Hill in Kashgar that went wrong in every possible way and ended with a low-speed getaway on a camel; the time Victoria Hand and the Black Widow had an argument and SHIELD's entire staff took all their accumulated vacation time at once so as to be out of range of the atomic fallout.

In return, Skye shares stories of the hackers she ran with as a teenager, of joining the Rising Tide, of choosing her own family. It's not hard to go from there to talking about team unity, and connection, and finding pleasure where you can. Skye is obviously a little shocked to learn that some of Melinda's past lovers have been women, trying to disguise her surprise with cool nonchalance, and Melinda grabs the edge of that fraying thread and catches her with it.

The other thing about Skye is that she's good at people, good the way Coulson is good, with an unerring instinct for what makes them tick. Melinda pauses at the door as she's leaving, and says casually, "Pity Simmons wouldn't be interested in something like this."

"Simmons," Skye says with disbelief. "You tried to seduce Simmons."

"I didn't try to do anything. I'm just saying, she's a little too buttoned-up for this kind of thing."

"Simmons isn't buttoned up," Skye says indignantly. "Simmons is fun. Maybe if you didn't go around glaring at everyone with your crazy murder face, people would be a bit more relaxed around you."

Melinda shrugs. "You try, if you want."

"I will!" Skye says as she shuts the door. "Watch me!"

Melinda watches her, because watching Skye is a masterclass. She's always been more physical with Simmons than anyone else, but now she gradually ramps things up; longer hugs, more lingering touches, picking foam out of Simmons' hair after an experiment gone wrong. They take to sitting in Skye's bunk, chatting or working or watching TV on Skye's laptop, curled up together in a nest of blankets. Simmons always emerges looking pink and flustered.

Muffled giggling starts to come from Skye's quarters at all hours of the day and night. Ward and Fitz sulk around the Bus like puppies deprived of treats, and Coulson keeps darting his eyes sideways every time he hears laughter, as if he's afraid of what they might be cooking up together.

Melinda walks around with a smile on her face. She's pleased. Also, it keeps everyone on edge.

Skye and Ward work things out on their own, with only a little help from Melinda in the form of a spiked bottle of Jim Beam. (Don't ask what she spiked it with. That's classified.)

Then it's just a matter of time before Ward goes looking for Skye in her quarters, and interrupts her with Simmons.

"Sparring practice at 1500," he says, even though Melinda knows there's nothing on the schedule.

Skye rolls her eyes. "Slave driver."

Simmons looks at her watch and bounces off the bed. "I should probably go. You know, lots to do, can't leave Fitz alone in the lab too long—"

"Hey, get back here." Skye pulls Simmons back down and half into her lap, reaching up to tuck a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. Simmons shivers.

And although he disguises it better, so does Ward. "I'm interrupting—"

"There's nothing to interrupt," Simmons says. "Nothing at all!"

Dear god, that girl is never allowed to go undercover. Not on any op that Melinda's running.

"We're watching reality TV," Skye says. "Have a seat, come mock people's terrible life choices with us."

Ward looks at Simmons. "That okay?"

Simmons glances at Ward from under her lashes. It's obviously nerves, not coquetry, but the effect is stunning either way. "Yes. I mean—yes. That would be lovely."

"See? 'Lovely'." Skye rolls the 'L's around in her mouth in a horrific imitation of Simmons' accent, and Simmons scoffs and rolls her eyes. "C'mere." Skye pats the bed, where there's maybe ten spare inches of blanket to squeeze into. "There's not much room, but I'm sure you won't complain."

Ward doesn't complain, not then, although he whines to Melinda later about how the two girls are still having more sex with each other than with him.

"I'm sorry, Ward, are you not getting it on the regular?" Melinda asks, throwing a leg over his thighs so she can ride him in the cockpit.

"If I got it any more often my dick would fall off."

"Then stop complaining."

When they're done, Melinda smooths her hair back into place. "You know, if Skye and Simmons are busy, there are other options on this plane. Not me," she adds, annoyed, off Ward's look. Why is everyone so slow? "The two of you have been flirting since Ossetia."

Something must have gone down on that mission. Ward has been spending more and more time in the lab with Fitz, supposedly refining the design of the night-night gun; which gives him plenty of opportunities to stand too close to Fitz in the lab, to lean over his shoulder while looking at schematics, to handle Fitz's… weapon. Melinda has noticed.

"Stop worrying about your stupid heterosexuality and fuck him like you know you want to."

Ward takes her advice. Melinda checks in on them a few times, because watching the release of that much pent-up frustration is pretty spectacular. Then she turns off the cameras and leaves them to it. They can take it from here.

It's also through the cameras that she catches Skye and Fitz, who apparently didn't need Melinda's help at all. It makes sense; the two of them have grown close over the past few months, bonding over a shared enthusiasm for technology and early-aughts cartoons, and Skye has a strong sense of fair play that wouldn't let Fitz be left out. They've been sneaky about it. Melinda approves.

When Coulson tells her he can't make it to team scrabble night—"I have a teleconference with the Moroccan authorities about SHIELD's unfortunate tendency to keep dropping our personnel in their waters"—Melinda seizes her chance. She lures Ward into the common room early with the promise of scotch, then sends him to drag Fitz away from the project he's been working on for ten hours straight.

When Fitz comes in they pounce on him together. He protests extensively about the work he had to leave behind, the inconvenience of trying to do physics experiments on a moving airplane, and the fact that Simmons is too busy to help. He doesn't protest even a little about the surprise threesome he's suddenly part of.

"Can't hurt to take a break," Ward says, arms slipping around Fitz's waist while Melinda makes short work of his fly, and Fitz goes abruptly quiet.

They're all full-clothed and lounging on the couch when Skye and Simmons walk in a little while later. That doesn't stop Fitz from jumping like he's been electrocuted. His expression reminds Melinda of a dog that's been caught drinking from the toilet. "Jemma!" he says, stuttering, "We were—"

Skye tactfully comes over to join Melinda and Ward. "What are you crazy kids up to?" she asks, taking Fitz's place on Ward's lap. She gives Melinda a challenging smile, all teeth, and Melinda bites hard on the inside of her thigh before working her way up under Skye's skirt.

From the other side of the room there's a lot of frantic whispering, of which Melinda catches, "…don't need my permission…" and "…the only one I want to…", and when she looks around Simmons is pressing kisses all over Fitz's face and both their cheeks are wet.

Fitz and Simmons spend an hour on their own, but when they come back they're happy to settle into the cuddle pile. Melinda even cuddles a little, remembering other teams she's been on; other teams who knit themselves together with touch, until they shared one body and one mind, moved in the field as one. She had forgotten how it felt.

They're nearly finished, nearly a team. She just has to sit back and wait for the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place.

Coulson calls her into his office the next day. "May," he says abruptly, "what the fuck have you done to my team?"

Hearing him swear is a rare pleasure and she lets herself enjoy it to the full. "I don't know what you mean."

"You know exactly what I mean, and I am not playing this game with you. This is you, isn't it? What are you doing?"

She shrugs. "It's a bonding exercise."

"Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"They're _bonding_. Getting to know each other, getting inside each other's heads."

"I think the word you're looking for is 'pants'."

"I know what I'm doing."

"I never doubt it, but this—"

"The only thing missing is you."

Coulson groans. "You're kidding."

"If you want to mold them into a team, this is what needs to be done."

He rubs a hand over his face, and she realizes suddenly that he hasn't had a real team since he lost Barton and Romanov to the Avengers. He's been working alone. And he needs the physical comfort as much as any of them.

"I think you're massively overestimating my personal appeal."

"Both those girls worship the ground you walk on. They'd drop their panties for you in a second and be glad to do it."

"I was aiming more for a father figure kind of vibe."

"You missed. As for Fitz, he's practically president of your fan club."

Melinda watches him as he considers it; the easy camaraderie he's developed with Skye, his clear affection for Simmons, the way even his behavior with Fitz is intimate, all reassuring touches and Coulson's hand steady on the back of his neck. And then she sees his thoughts come to rest on the last member of their team…

"I'm not sleeping with Ward," Coulson says, aggrieved, like it's a huge imposition to be asked to have sex with a fit young man in his prime.

But she can't let him play favorites, even in this. Any relationship that's less than completely solid is a weak link. "You have to. You know how this works."

"Do I?"

"Yes," she tells him firmly. "Remember Cartagena?"

It's been twenty years, but she still sees the ghost of a smile flit over Coulson's face. Six of them had been assigned to take down a human trafficking ring, conducting surveillance from a cramped apartment without enough room to swing a sniper rifle. Half of SHIELD had joined the betting pool on how long it would take them to murder each other, and no one had wagered on more than a few weeks. Melinda still remembers the satisfaction of striding into Fury's office four months later and slapping her mission report on his desk, every single gang member crossed off and not one single 'interpersonal incident' to report. She remembers how they did it. Phil remembers how they did it.

"All stuck on this bus together, it's going to happen eventually. Might as well control it. Let them blow off some steam."

"As always, you make a compelling argument."

"Don't tell me you're not dying to see Ward's face," Melinda adds, because she's pretty sure Ward isn't going to be thrilled about the idea either, but five minutes alone with Coulson will change his mind.

"Fine," he says grumpily, but she can see the plans forming in his head, scenarios considered and discarded. He's always been good at teamwork. He unbuttons his jacket, turns towards the door. "I suppose there's no time like the present."

"No," she says.

He looks back and frowns at her. "You just said—"

She grabs him by the lapels and reels him in, already considering everything she can do to him with a pair of sharp cufflinks and a length of silk tie.

"Not yet. I called dibs."


End file.
